Here she was at the beginning of her ‘new life’, and suddenly she was back in the old one.

‘No,’ she muttered aloud. ‘I’ve played this script before and I’m not doing it again. I get pregnant, Jake does the decent thing, and I’m left feeling grateful. Not this time. No way. I’m a big girl now. I’ll look after myself and my baby without help from him.’

My baby! It had a melancholy sound. It should have been ‘our baby’. There were so many moments that she was going to miss: telling Jake that he would be a father at last, seeing his eyes glow with joy, sharing the birth with him.

She must forget about all those things, because Jake didn’t really want her. He’d wanted the glamorous creature of the party, but that hadn’t been the real Kelly. Even the pencil-slim figure would soon blur and thicken.

But for how long? Suppose she miscarried again? That, too, she would face alone if it happened. And it was better that way.

‘He needn’t even know I’m pregnant,’ she went on to herself. ‘I’ll say I have to work, and not visit him again. He’ll go back to Olympia and I-’ She pressed her hand over her stomach, the fingers splayed, and a smile came over her face.

Suddenly it hit her. She was going to have a baby, Jake’s baby, the child she’d waited, longed and prayed for, all these years. Her smile was not only one of tenderness. It was a smile of triumph.

This was the true beginning of her new life, not as the sexy imp who’d briefly captured Jake’s volatile fancy, but as a strong woman who could cope alone, depending on no man.

‘Who says it’s too late?’ she whispered. ‘It might be too late for us, but it’s only just starting for me.’

Next day she found Jake sitting in a chair by the window. He seemed stronger, but there was a tension about him that made conversation difficult.

‘Does the doctor think you’re any better?’ she asked.

‘I’m making progress. Slow but sure, that’s what he keeps saying.’

‘Good.’

‘What about you?’

‘I’m fine. I got a good mark for my last essay.’

‘And your job?’

‘That’s easy.’

‘But for how much longer?’ he asked slowly.

Time seemed to stop. ‘What-do you mean?’ Kelly asked.

‘You’re pregnant, aren’t you?’

‘What? Jake, for pity’s sake-one little giddy spell-’

‘At precisely three o’clock in the afternoon.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘That’s what happened last time. Dead on three o’clock.’

She stared. ‘You can’t possibly remember that.’

‘We were hurrying to catch a bus. It left at ten past three and when we reached the bus station I said, “It’s only three o’clock.” And the next minute you turned green. Yesterday it was three o’clock again.’

‘Well-that’s a coincidence.’

‘You’re pregnant.’

This was the last thing she’d expected. How had Jake remembered that detail all these years when she hadn’t remembered it herself? With disaster staring her in the face she tried belligerence. ‘Well, what if I am?’

‘I just thought you might want to tell me,’ Jake said, looking out of the window.

‘Why?’

He digested the implications of this for a moment before saying quietly, ‘No reason.’

‘Let’s stick to what we agreed, Jake,’ she said desperately. ‘Friendly, but no strings.’

‘All right, then as one friend to another tell me what happens now. Are you planning to marry the father?’

‘That doesn’t concern you.’

‘Tell me,’ he insisted, like the old, determined Jake.

‘No.’

‘Live with him?’

‘No.’

‘Your decision or his?’

‘Mine.’

‘Who is he?’

‘Jake, I’m warning you-’

‘Do you even know who he is?’

‘What did you say?’

‘Well, let’s face it, you were spoilt for choice when I last saw you-Kelly!’

He was talking to empty air. Kelly had stormed out.

She ran most of the way home, driven by her anger. She stopped finally in a tiny park where there was a duckpond, and sat on a bench. How shrewdly she’d planned a way of dealing with the situation, and then she’d fallen at the first fence.

Yet she’d still travelled far. Once she would have been in tears at this point. Now she didn’t want to cry. She wanted to wring Jake’s neck. How dared he suspect her of sleeping around? Even if she had worked hard to give him that impression.

A mother duck, with six frantically paddling ducklings in tow, made her way determinedly across the pond. Kelly smiled at the sight, and felt herself calming down. As her thoughts regained some sort of order she realised that Jake might have done her a favour by doubting the baby’s parentage.

He’d seen her ‘belle of the ball’ act, and been fooled by it. Good. Anything was better than having him suspect that he was still the only man she’d ever slept with. What he was thinking would make life simpler. The truth would merely make it impossible.

Her courage was returning as she headed out of the park.

When she reached her apartment the telephone was already ringing.

‘I’m sorry,’ Jake said as soon as she answered. ‘I really didn’t mean it the way it came out. It was just that you- Never mind. Can you come back here?’

‘No, but I’ll look in tomorrow.’

‘Promise?’ His voice was urgent.

‘I promise.’

He was answering letters when she arrived next day, but he shoved the whole lot aside to greet her eagerly. His colour was better and his voice stronger.

‘How are you feeling?’ he demanded.

‘Fine.’

‘Have you seen your local doctor?’

‘No.’

‘Why, for Pete’s sake?’ His eyes narrowed with sudden suspicion. ‘Have you made any decisions yet?’

‘Yes,’ she said, understanding him. ‘I’m going to have the baby. I want it.’

He relaxed slightly. ‘Then you must take proper care of yourself. You’ll just have to take money from me after all.’

At the words ‘have to’ Kelly tensed. ‘I don’t have to do anything, Jake.’

‘It’s common sense. You can’t study and do a job if you’re pregnant. You mustn’t take risks.’

‘Fine. I’ll be careful.’

‘But not with any help from me, eh? Well, that tells me all I need to know.’

‘I don’t know what you mean by that-’

‘You know exactly what I mean.’

‘Jake, understand this: nothing has changed between us. I am having a baby. I am, not we are.’

She thought he became a little paler, but he spoke calmly. ‘You’ve already made that quite clear. But I told you before that I owe you, and I’d like to help.’

She didn’t answer, but crossed her arms and looked mulish. It was Jake’s turn to grow annoyed.

‘And what about when the baby’s born? Have you thought of that, you mad woman? You can’t support yourself. You have to let me support you.’

‘I don’t have to do anything,’ she said through gritted teeth.

‘That’s just fine talk. In practical terms you do have to do what’s best for your baby, and that isn’t the way you’re living now.’

‘Will you stop giving me orders? You can’t do that any more.’

‘I never gave you orders.’

‘Oh, sure!’

‘I never did,’ he yelled.

‘Of course not. Why bother giving orders to someone who scurries to do whatever you want without waiting to be asked?’

He stared. ‘You make me sound like a bully.’

‘No, you weren’t,’ she conceded with a sigh. ‘You just never thought. And that’s as much my fault as yours because I never forced you to think. I always gave in too easily.’

‘And you’re doing it again,’ he pointed out.

‘How do you mean?’

‘Rushing to take the blame, like that. You shouldn’t do it.’

‘Right.’

‘You should stand up to me.’

‘Yes.’

‘Don’t let me be so overbearing.’

‘I won’t.’

‘Except now, because I happen to be right.’

Kelly sighed and threw up her hands at this inevitable end. ‘That’s for me to decide,’ she declared.

‘So what are you going to do for money? Or are you planning something really stupid like leaving college?’

‘I don’t know,’ she yelled back. ‘I’ll find another way of making money.’

‘How?’ he demanded remorselessly.

‘Put a lodger in my spare room. I don’t know. I’ll think of something. But I’ll tell you this, Jake. I won’t be asking you for permission.’

‘Kelly, will you see sense?’ he roared.

‘I have seen sense. I saw sense the day I booted you out.’

‘Don’t be so-where are you going? Come back here. Kelly!’

Dr Ainsley caught up with her in the café a few minutes later.

‘Well done,’ he said. ‘That was the best entertainment we’ve had for a long time.’

‘I suppose everyone heard every word.’

‘Well, neither of you bothered to lower your voices. Great stuff. And you did my patient a world of good. I haven’t seen him so lively since he came in here.’

‘We were arguing about my pregnancy. You didn’t-?’

‘Not guilty. I was pretty sure he’d spotted it for himself by the way he was looking at you when you turned green.’

‘At exactly three o’clock in the afternoon. Just like last time, apparently.’

‘He remembered that?’

‘Jake always says his mind is like flypaper. Things stick to it for ages. It’s very useful for a journalist.’

‘Ah, yes. That must be it.’ A figure appeared at the entrance of the café. ‘Look who’s here.’ He raised his voice. ‘Well done, Jake. And you’re barely out of breath.’

He shifted for Jake to seat himself opposite Kelly, but then settled down again in his own seat.

‘I’ll stick around as referee,’ he said. ‘Retire to your opposite corners and when I say so, come out chucking cream buns.’

‘That’s all the cream buns in this place are good for,’ Jake observed. ‘Kelly, after you dashed off I realised that you’d been brilliant.’

She’d recovered her temper enough to smile. ‘If you’d realised that years ago I might never have thrown you out.’